Moonlit Infernum
by Michael Dante
Summary: This is a work in progress. For all you anime/manga/supernatural not the show, just in general you'll probably recognize a few things I've borrowed from particular shows. I hope you enjoy and comments are welcome, any/all likenesses are coincidence.


_Prologue_

The rain falls in heavy sheets over the shaded gloom of the city. The wind howls its lament as lightning splits the sky and his brother thunder cheers him from the sidelines. A lone figure stands against the skyline, face shrouded by a hood and cloak billowing in the gale. The rain soaks through the cloak and steam rises of the figures body. A flash as lightning tries to discover the figures identity and for a brief moment, he's successful. The light washes over the face concealed beneath the hood to reveal a boy, o older than seventeen. His face is soft, yet adamant as his brown eyes gaze intently at the city below him. His hood is blown back revealing a shock of pale white hair gleaming in the darkness. He smiles to himself as he closes his eyes and loses himself in Mother Nature's righteous fury. Suddenly, he's falling forward into the crisp night, recklessly plummeting towards the ground, but, at the last minute possible he contorts his body with an elegant twist and lands feet firmly and gently touching the ground. His eyes are still close as he gently sniffs the air, all his concentration pouring into his senses as he searches for his target. His eyes flash open as he darts into a nearby alley soundlessly; a ghostly hunter who has just located his prey. He speeds through the darkened alleys and underground of the city, far faster and more nimbly than humanly capable, none are even aware of his presence. He comes to a stop in front of a seedy looking pub, neon sign signaling its prophecy of "Live Girls!" and "$1 Drafts" to the world. He strides towards the door and pulls open the door gracefully as he steps over the threshold to the din and warmth the tavern offers.

"Go to school. Graduate and go to college. Get a job and contribute to society. What a joke. Ever since I was little, that's all people had told me, but being an orphan I didn't really feel like I owed anything to anyone. My mom died when I was still a kid. Actually, she was murdered right in front of my eyes. As far as I knew, she had never done anything but help people, yet somehow I watched a man strangle her three feet off the ground, and as she turned deeper and deeper shades of purple, blue, and finally white her thoughts weren't even for herself. She just kept rambling about not hurting me, anything but hurting her baby. Well, she got her wish. I watched her die, watched the man pull her still beating heart from her chest. He held it in his hand as he turned to me and winked. I can still remember his words that day, as I held my dying mother in my arms. 'Trust me kid. One day you'll thank me. The bitch got what she deserved. If you think otherwise, than when you grow up, come and find me if you can.' That day, part of me died with my mother. I watched, numb, as they buried her and reassured me that it wasn't a man I'd seen. 'She was mauled by a wild animal that had gotten into the house and I was just experiencing post traumatic stress that had caused me to hallucinate as a way to deal with the whole situation'. Bullshit. I know what I saw, and I spent the next twelve years of my life making sure that when I finally caught up o the bastard that took her from me, I would repay him the favor. With motivation like that, the normalcy of life isn't a secure and safe fall back shelter for when the going got tough. It was more like a prison, and on my seventeenth birthday, I finally escaped.

Ever since I was about seven or eight, I spent my days at school getting into fights. Big, small, fat, skinny, black, white, it didn't really matter to me. There was just me and him (never her. No matter how messed up I got, I did follow a little bit of a code: protect the weak and innocent, never hurt a woman and always respect my opponent. Other than that the only thing I believed in was respecting the only mother I still had, nature.) After a while though, you get tired of pounding on the same ol' people, no matter how many reason they give. It also got a lot easier to win and there wasn't any honor in fighting someone weaker than you, and no fun either. Eventually I stepped it up to bigger game. I'd walk down dark alleys at night in gang territory. I didn't care if I lost, so long as by the end I'd given everything I had. Ha ha ha ha to be completely honest, I spent more nights than I can count passed out in the gutter, bleeding and broken, yet somehow I always made it through the night. I'd wake up the next morning without even so much as a scratch or bruise as evidence of the beating from the night before. No stiffness, soreness, even broken bones would heal overnight. And, after all of these experiences and bar brawls I'd get myself into, nothing could prepare me for what happened that night, or what I'd be told the next morning."

_Chap. 1_

"You sonof a bitch!" the man exclaimed with a slur. He'd been drinking heavily all night as he leaned in close to the boy. "You've hadthat hand fivetimes now. You'vegotta be cheating."

"Maybe if you hadn't drank so damn much, you'd be playing a little better hunh, buddy?" the boy shifted in his seat. While his voice dripped with sarcasm, the drunk man's was saturated with the smell of cheap booze and cigarettes. "I win, so hand over the cash gramps. And no more double or nothing, you're already playing me quadruple or nothing. So that's two grand papi."

"Jus'cause you keep calling me old doesnmean I ain't too old to beat the piss outta some snotnosed punk," he rose from his seat menacingly. He pulled a blade from his jacket and slammed it down into the table. "My pal here thinksya got it wrong kid. He says you oweme the money, and ifi were you, I'd goalong with what hesays. He gets really angry whenya don't," he finished winking. The boy looked the man and the rest of the table over once as a smirk spread across his face.

"If he starts a fight, and I fight back that's what? Two…four…twenty, twenty to one are odds that I can live with," the boy thought to himself. He reached across the table and ran his hand over the blade. "That's a nice knife ya got," the boy teased as he placed his boot against the bottom of the table. He braced his booted foot as he tightened his grip on the handle of the blade, "Let's see if you still think the same way after I bury it hilt deep into your ribs!" he shouted as he kicked the table up and at the four men on his right. Screams of surprise erupted in the bar, as two of the four were immediately crushed between the wall and the heavy oak table. The other two had managed to roll to the side and were just now getting back to their feet as they watched the boy trust the knife into the left side of the man. The other too pulled out pistols and rounded on the kid. He looked up at them as he pulled the knife clear and wiped it clean on the man's shirt. "Damn, and here I am bringin' a knife to a gunfight." He twirled the knife nimbly though his fingers as he steadily gazed on his would-be executioners. "Well, to be honest, I'm not all that worried about two trashed assholes who were probably garbage shots to begin with, let alone once they've drank their way through six or seven shots apiece and a few beers to boot. Catch!" he yelled as he let the knife fly from his hand with a carefree flick. The man on the left didn't even see it coming. The knife stuck home and he went down in a heap as the boy leapt behind the men to his rear. He slid through the small space between them just as the other man let loose with the pistol. The kid wasn't fast enough though, as he got clipped by a couple of rounds and watched the other two in front of him fall to the ground. He rolled to the side and jumped over the bar to find the bartender cowering in a corner with a shotgun in his hands. He pointed it at the kid,

" Y..yo…you came in h..he…here makin' all this t..t..trouble for me. I ought to blow your b..b..brains out," as he placed the barrel to the boy's head. The boy almost felt sorry for the man as he caught him with a left hook and he hit the floor like a sack of bricks. "Sorry Porky, I'll have to remember that for next time. Sleep well," the boy rolled over and peered over the counter. The bodies lined the floor, like some kind of sick carnal carpeting. He looked up to see that idiot firing randomly in his drunken stupor. He quickly surveyed the room and saw that none of them were dead, yet. "Why does everyone else have not have a problem killing innocent people…well except for those guys," he was looking over in the corner where the card game had been going on just seconds before. "They didn't deserve to die though, I've gotta stop that lunatic from doing anything else to hurt people, and himself, but what?" He looked over at the shotgun that had fallen to the floor a couple of inches from its owner. "It's worth a shot," he shrugged as he grabbed it up. He looked around him for anything to help him aim the shot. The man was still firing random pot shots in his direction, the boy had heard him change guns at least three times now, and was waiting for an opening. He listened carefully as he counted the shots the man had been firing off, fourteen…fifteen…and sixteen. The boy twirled and placed the shotgun on the bar to steady the shot.

"BANG! BANG!" The shots echoed throughout the empty bar, and the boy placed a hand on the counter as he vaulted himself over it. The two gaping holes to the left and right of the man were still smoking as the plaster fell in pieces to the floor. The boy, holding the shotgun by the barrel, brought the butt down on the man at the base of his neck. He crumpled to the floor and the bar was silent, save for the hissing of the hot barrel of the shotgun burning into the boy's hand. He surveyed the wreckage that was now the seedy bar he had picked for tonight. He looked at his hand for the first time as if unaware it had been burning this entire time. He threw down the shotgun and there was a clunk as the sound of metal on wood echoed through the quiet pub. He pulled out a sleek looking cell phone and dialed those three magic numbers as the phone rang monotonously. It was answered on the second ring with the cool, impersonal voice of the operator,

"Nine one one, emergency services this is the operator speaking, what is your emergency?"

"I need to report a bar brawl that got a little outta control. There were shots fired and we're going to need a few ambulances for some of these people, otherwise they won't pull through."

"I need an address sir, and your name for questioning," the operator answered.

"The address is 1109 E. Munroe thanks for your help," the boy pressed the end button and slid the phone back into his pocket. He looked at himself in the mirror, he was a bloody mess. Blood, gore, and dirt were everywhere, and he didn't remember being cut or hit at all. "Damn," he looked himself up and down as he pulled the remnants of his shirt off, "and this was one of my favorite shirts. Even after all that though, I'm still a sexy beast," he winked and blew a kiss to his reflection in the mirror.

"And modest too," a voice called from the doorway.  
"Who are you?" the boy turned to face the person the voice belonged to.


End file.
